This is a game I’ve owned on PSN for absolutely ages via my PS3, but the one time I tried to play through it years ago on that, it crashed like 30 minutes in and I had to give up XD. I got it free on Steam some time ago, so it’s been something I’ve been meaning to get to for a while, and it ended up being what I decided to do with the rest of my evening that Sunday night. It took me a little under 5 hours to beat the English version of the game using an Xbone controller.

Hell Yeah is the story of Ash, the skeletal rabbit that’s the prince of hell. After a paparazzi scandal catches him in a compromising position and he sees that there are 100 whole hits on it online (2012 was truly a different time XD), he vows to just go out and kill 100 demons, thereby certainly getting rid of everyone who’s seen the photo. It’s a very silly game that feels like a NewGrounds game that got an unlimited budget, and it absolutely drips late-era XBLA energy from every pore. Despite some references and such in the comedy being a bit dated (as one would expect in a comedy game from over a decade ago), I was very surprised at just how well the game’s comedy has aged. It’s a bit graphic for the sake of it, of course, but nothing that made me too uncomfortable, and I’m usually a huge baby about that kind of thing (so it must be fine XD). I was shocked to learn that it was made by a French studio, since it’s such a funny game in English I thought for sure that it must’ve been written by native speakers, but it’s a really cool and fun thing to be wrong about~. It’s a delightfully quotable game that sets out to be irreverent and ridiculous, and it accomplishes that fantastically as far as I’m concerned.

Gameplay-wise, Hell Yeah is a pretty darn competent action/adventure platformer too! It’s not quite a metroidvania, as even though you’ve got upgrades slowly throughout the game and do return to some areas later, the whole experience is very guided and linear. Even returning to areas is laid out to you explicitly, so it’s not something you need to remember to do or anything. Ash has his blade wheel/jetpack he rides around in and a whole bunch of guns to kill demons and monsters with, and boy is he excited to do it! These demons are something between mini-bosses and environmental puzzles (depending on the demon), and you always execute them with a WarioWare-style micro game (that you take damage from if you mess it up).

The level design is super varied despite the overall simplicity of the controls, so it remarkably never gets boring despite how much of a similar thing you’re doing from area to area. It’s a few weird ideas that end up coming together remarkably well, and I was delighted by just how far above my expectations that this game ended up hitting. It’s not a terribly hard game, but it’s not exactly easy either. I found it to be a nice challenge, which means it’s probably on the harder side given that I’m pretty comfortable with this sort of thing, but at least you have super grenades and a few other nasty tricks you can grind a bit of cash for to help you out if you hit a particularly nasty roadblock of a demon.

The presentation is really fun! Everything has a very 2012 Flash Game vibe to it, but with the presentation of a proper (even Sega published!) XBLA indie game. There are a ton of weird, wacky characters to run into, and they clearly had a ton of fun thinking up all of the areas and demons you encounter along your adventure. The music is also very fun, and it makes for a great backdrop to all the silliness and mayhem (with my particular favorite being the fake Euro-beat club song that plays in the club level x3).

Verdict: Recommended. It’s not a super incredible, must-play experience, but it’s really good fun as far as action games go! While not everyone will love the humor or the zaniness, if this sort of absurdity is your jam, there’s a lot to enjoy here. If you’re a fan of action platformers and absurdism with a bit of reference humor thrown in for good measure, this is one game that can make for a really fun weekend romp~.

I had played this game once and gotten frustrated with it when i was a young impressionable teenager with barely any taste in anything, so naturally I should come back to it as an adult and actually try to beat it, right? Only something went wrong. Before the game could even start, the it assaulted me with its aggressively unfunny south park humor. I had one of those moments where you question every other bit of media you consumed in those formative years. "What other dreck was I so easily ready to choke down in the name of content?" Not this time. Don't even bother to try to get through this cringe corporate take on the indie platformers of the time. You'd be better off playing Braid (derogatory)

Genial juego de humor, plataformas y gore donde llevas al magnífico rey del infierno en su búsqueda de venganza. Dura lo suficiente para que las bromas y las ejecuciones no se hagan pesadas, si bien creo que le han faltado otras 7 u 8 para que algunas de estas ejecuciones no se repitan tanto (que aun así hay muchas, ojo). Es un juego relativamente facilón, pero eres el rey del infierno, no tendría mucho sentido que te costase la vida avanzar. Como puntos negativos a destacar serían que los minibosses muchas veces no los ves nada de tiempo, matando a alguno desde lejos sin poder apreciar su genial diseño. Otro sería que el sistema de guardado automático a veces guarda cada muy pocos pasos y otras veces tarda mucho rato. De hecho más de una vez volverás a una zona donde sabes que ha habido un guardado automático con el fin de no perder lo que has hecho. También creo que los minions spawnean demasiado pronto después de matarlos. En general, un juego muy divertido.

Yuck! This really was not good. I bought this on a whim at a steam sale in like December, and that's 4 bucks I'm not getting back. I wasn't planning on playing this anytime soon but I'm on vactation and wanted to play some PC stuff, but I forgot my controller and this is the only thing i could stomach with keyboard and mouse. It's got that 2010s edgy-hot topic "epic" style with humor to match. That is always bad if handled bad and it's handled bad here. There's some jokes about domestic abuse and death that are inexcusable. It sucks because I like the concept. Hunting monsters is fun and the minigames they give you don't overstay their welcome. There's just enough to where they don't get stale or frustrating. Until the final boss. The final boss was easy, I beat it like 3rd-4th try. Then they throw you into the kill bill minigame that you've seen lots of times. I hit the first input, then the second and...it doesn't work. The second input does not work at all. No matter what I mapped my buttons to, nothing worked. So I had to wait a day to beat this game with my controller. That's ridiculous. Fuck this game. But hey theres a shadow the hedgehog reference so yk 4.5/10.

Really not good. My first thought on opening the game was that the controls kinda feel like shit and unfortunately it never got better. The "super epic" theming and Hot Topic art style do a great job of being really annoying. Reading the dialogue felt like a waste of time. The camera is so zoomed in that jumps are blind and fast moving or flying enemies are obnoxious to fight since bullets immediately despawn outside the view. There is a dedicated zoom out button to remedy this I guess, but I'd really rather the game just work without it. The stop and go that comes from killing monsters and zooming the camera from objective to objective is headache inducing.

Killing monsters sends you into a Wario Ware-esque kind of mini-game every time. They range from pointless to boring. You will see each one many many times, with an accompanying "funny" death scene afterwards. On god half the playtime is watching them play out.

This game is probably awesome if you're 13. Unfortunately I'm a grown ass man and I don't wish for 5 hour flash games.